Unit 9

The challenge I am having cataloging my items is mostly that I do not know my items intimately. They are just items I found online. I am not completely sure about the metadata involved with each piece. There are a few that have some metadata attached so they were easier to catalog than others. I do not even know that much about the pictures of my mom as she recently had a stroke and is unable to tell me about her childhood pictures I just found and included.

I enjoyed looking for the metadata for the items that are in my collection. Some had more than others and some had none because I did not remember where I got the item. I had to go back and rethink some of the categories I chose because I wanted to keep my labels consistent. I had not thought of all of this when I first began putting my collection together but, as I see it coming together I see how important it is to know what you have. I went back through my collection and tried to make the metadata consistent.

I can see how cataloging records is expensive. It is took a while for me to decide what subject headings and key words to use.

Unit 8

I did not read correctly and did not change the logo until I read other student's posts stating that they changed the logo. I went back and changed the logo picture to a picture of my mom, who is in some of the pictures in my repository. I thought it would be fun to see if I could cut her face from a photo and save it and paste it into the logo. It worked. I was nervous because there was a lot of work to get it posted but there were no signs of victory until I finished. I was nervous clicking on the refresh button that all that work would have to be repeated but, alas, I did it correctly the first time.

Unit 8

This install was easier than the other two because it is the third one I did. I remembered little tricks from the last two installs that I was able to use with this one. I could not remember how to move from one user to the other. I had trouble with typos but not as many as before. I figured out from the past that I was the wrong user when it asked for the password. I knew that there was no password, partly from John’s post. But then I had to navigate back to the user1. I am beginning to understand and the pathways and terms to use in the VM.
I branding change I did was minimal. I changed the welcome to read “This repository is a collection of photographs and objects from Chicago during the 1933-1934 World’s Fair”. This was not that easy to enter as I did not know that I needed to use “sudo nano” before the long command string. Then I did not take out the "a"before and after the line. Of course it failed and I went back and figured out the mistake. It worked.
Customizing the look of the installation was not very hard even though I made a mistake the first time. The more I work with the VM and the command line the more comfortable I am so this install was easier than the other two.

unit 7

I am new to digital information. Right now the only questions I have are ones that are addressed in each unit. I am working on keeping my head above water. I don't know what questions to ask and I have not worked with digital collections before so I don't know what should be in a collection and what is too much. I will continue to read everyone's posts and try to take it all in. I am excited to see what I have learned and what I can do so far. Everything I look at still leaves me with questions and uncertainties. I am just grasping the very edge of all that we are learning but I continue to understand more and more.

However, I looked at Enterprise Content Management (ECM). It is a formalized organization and storage system for documents and other content. ECM are tools that are used throughout the lifecycle of the content. ECM evolved to include new metadata and information about how the content was used. This allows the organization to access data used in business decisions.
The ECM has evolved from electronic document management systems (EDMS) of the late 1980’s. These original products were stand-alone products that could resolve customer inquiries. As the internet was introduced the term was changed to ECM. Open Source ECM products are both internal and external making outsourcing possible.
ECM have three key ideas, they are integrative middleware which is behind the scenes infrastructure for web-based IT, independent services which means there is only one general service available which avoids redundant functions, and as a uniform repository for all types of information which is a content warehouse.
ECM technology is an invisible infrastructure that supports specialized applications and fit into multi-layer models for managing structured data.

Unit 6

How was the install for you? Were you able to follow what was going on, or was it pretty much rote? Do you think you could figure this out on your own or would you need help from a systems specialist?

The install went OK for me. I tried to use the same password I have been using for everything and it failed. I did not know where I made my mistake so I deleted the whole machine. Now, looking back I see that I could have slowed down and retraced the steps and found the snapshot just before the mistake and started from there. i just worry that I won't get everything done on time and so I try to move too fast sometimes. I don't know exactly what we are doing so I am afraid my ignorance will show and I won't pass the class. I am not as computer savvy as others in the class but I am learning a lot. I have even been able to help others at work because of the exposure this class has given me. I would not want to be set loose to do this on my own yet but I am beginning to understand the process as we go along.